Beyond Bones

On the next leg of our trip, we visited the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Now, you may ask, “Nicole, your last adventure was in a national park, and this is a conservation area — what’s the difference?” And I’d answer that a conservation area has people living on it, whereas in a national park, no permanent […]

Editor’s Note: In anticipation of our upcoming GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event on Feb. 8, we interviewed several women who have pursued careers in science, technology, engineering, or math. Last week, we interviewed Air Liquide’s Victoria Rockwell. This week we’re featuring Celeste Poorte, Butterfly Rearing Coordinator at the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the […]

If you didn’t already know, we’re in the process of raising money to repair the Gueymard telescope at the George Observatory in the Save Our ‘Scope campaign. And thanks to you, we’ve raised over $65,000 of our $80,000 goal through donations ranging from $1 to $5,000 — and we’re grateful for every last one of ’em. But what’s […]

Heraldry is a unique identification system developed in the Middle Ages to aid in the identification of fully armored knights on the battle or tournament field. The roots of heraldry lay in the insignia, seals, and symbols used in ancient times for individual and/or national identification purposes. Heraldic designs were applied to shields, tunics, horse […]

The hard work and ingenuity of the Tanzanians never ceases to amaze me. While traveling one day, we passed the man you see in the photo below, and several more like him. When I asked Simon (my driver guide for the day) what was going on, he explained that they were hauling water. A water […]

In anticipation of our upcoming GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event on Feb. 8, we interviewed several women who have pursued careers in math and science. This week we’re featuring Victoria Rockwell, Director of Investor Development at Air Liquide. HMNS: How old were you when you first became interested in science, technology, engineering, and/or […]

Editor’s Note: Sometimes, you ask us questions on Facebook or Twitter that require a bit more than just a pithy response. So .. we wrangle the experts to get to the heart of the matter for you. You’re welcome. Q: A write-up on another Diplodocus says that the forelimbs and hands on all the Carnegie […]

For bats being amazing examples of evolutionary resilience and fascinating, intelligent creatures with complex, long lives that perform invaluable ecological roles, we humans don’t seem to appreciate them very much. They’ve had a bad rep in cultures around the world due to their association with the night for millennia, but what’s this based on, really? […]

In Part I, we talked about the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s Little Coffee Tree That Could, and how we grow, harvest, and dry coffee beans. But even after all this work, the beans are still not ready to consume. So let’s talk about how we get the dried (parchment) coffee to a state that can be enjoyed […]

Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes to you from Rebecca Johnson, Editor of the StarDate Magazine at the McDonald Observatory. A year-long celebration is underway to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, with the first event of 2014 being held at HMNS on Tues., Jan. 14 with a public […]